10:30AM. Twenty four hours ago, Katie had her new valve for a half-hour. She had gone “off machine” at 10:00.
Now she is concentrating on recovering from the broken sternum, but doing so with a heart that is fully functional. Alex and I are back in her room in the CCU—Coronary Care Unit—since almost 10.
Katie was taken off most of her IV tubes and abdominal tubes very early this morning; they had her sitting in the chair again for “breakfast”; she received some morphine while we were here; and now she’s trying to sleep, but is still not overly comfortable to be able to get a deep sleep.
The orders were sent up this morning for her room on the “regular” Cardiac recovery floor, so now we are waiting for the room to be available.
The nurse is allowing her to try and get a little sleep before getting her out of bed to take a walk. The Cardiac Rehab specialist was just here to set up her appointment in September. Katie was looking forward to that. She loves to exercise and was excited to get to do the rehab with cardiac specialists.
As I watch Katie lay there, I can see her carotid artery pumping away; it’s something that kind of scares me because it looks like her heart rate is up, and that’s when we’d go to the ER before. Now, the nurse says it’s ok…..it just means that with her laying down it’s noticeable. She thinks it’s a normal occurrence but since I don’t watch her sleep all the time like I did when she was a baby, then I’m just now noticing it. I tried to tell her that it wasn’t doing this yesterday or when I got here; I only noticed it after the morphine was administered, but she said morphine wouldn’t cause it, so it must be normal for Katie. Nurse Dee was a tad bit patronizing to me, as though I were an over-active-imagination mother. That is so far from the truth, and I have to say I resent it. However, I’ll sit here and keep an eye on Katie…..as a good mother should. I loved the two nurses Katie had yesterday (Steve and Sue), and the two last night (Kim and Dave). This Nurse Dee might be good, and she is nice, but I don’t think she like trivial questions. Or, what she thinks of as trivial. {Side note: Nurse Dee is not Katie’s nurse of the day; that’s Melody who is very, very nice. ND was the only person at the nurse’s station when I had my question, so I got stuck with her attitude.}
Katie is coherent, good color, motor functions seem to be fine, and she can still swallow the water from her straw. I’m just not happy with watching her rapid heartbeat from a jumpy carotid artery. Nurse Dee also said it could be from the IV tube still in her neck; I think I would have noticed that yesterday since it’s obviously making the inserted tube pulsate. So, I’ll keep an eye on it.
They should be coming in soon to get her up for her walk. I can’t wait until the pain calms down so she can made a speedier recovery. I don’t think we’ll know until tomorrow when she will be going home.
Til later……
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